I took a walk after church, and the cutting I passed through was filled with beautiful autumnal smells. The wind was slack after the rain, the air was warm and moist. It was a lovely, kindly, enveloping atmosphere.
I thank God for the sense of smell: it is a delight; and an alarm system, equally effective against fire and dog dirt. Not everyone is blessed with this sense, and its lack is not so obvious as the lack of sight or hearing. It can be quite serious: in the days when I had a proper job there was a story went the rounds about an anosmic instrument engineer who was concentrating hard on his work, completely oblivious to the burning cabinet behind him until a passer-by drew his attention to it.